UK Political weblog

Archive for the tag “arms”

Attacking Iraq (twice) was a mistake, attacking Libya was a mistake and gave rise to IS, ISIL, Daesh, whatever you want to call the power hungry, heinous, murdering hordes that are rampaging in the Middle East and giving rise to deluded religious fanatics in Europe and elsewhere.

The US and UK are engaged in air strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq in the US case and currently only in Iraq by the UK. The UK government is about to consider expanding strikes into Syria also. Another mistake? I think so. Attack by air can never defeat these thugs and more importantly thousands of innocent people will be killed in the process giving rise to even more hatred of the West and so becoming a recruiting sergeant for more terrorists. There is an argument that troops on the ground is the only way to defeat them but as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, you can defeat a nation and impose a new government under the guise of a flawed democracy but you cannot impose peace. Thousands of bombs have been dropped in the last year and yet ISIL is unmoved and the lack of western triumphalist videos and news reports rather make the case for me.

So if air strikes can’t ‘win’ and using western troops on the ground is politically unacceptable to the electorate, as is the case at present, what should the West do? This is always the question asked but never the question “Should we do anything?” We first have to accept the fact that the West is Capitalist and Capitalism cares nothing about the suffering of people and only has an interest in money. Having accepted that point we can move on and see that the death and destruction wreaked upon the Middle East was not to free a people from Saddam Hussein or the Taliban but to ensure reliable cheap oil supplies from Iraq and the hope of building an oil and gas pipeline across Afghanistan. The result as we can see has been utter chaos; we may be getting cheap oil by way of repayment of Iraqi debt (incurred by the war) but the pipeline is still too risky a project and ISIL has been born and is a bigger threat to Capitalist hopes than before.

As I said and history has shown, peace in the region cannot be forced by western arms so just suppose we pulled right out and indeed did nothing. Middle Eastern nations are awash with wealth and stocked to the skies with armaments, supplied by us of course. Leave them all to get on with it and maybe, just maybe, the two wings of Islam might cease their squabbling and co-operate against the common threat of ISIL and with the excuse of Western infidels removed it would focus their minds. We may have to cut down a little on oil imports which is no bad thing but the Arab need and greed for cash would ensure it kept flowing. In addition by removing ourselves as a perceived threat to the region and also to Islam we would vastly lower or remove the risk of terrorist attacks in our own cities. We would of course, be morally bound not to supply arms to any other nation and perhaps there is the rub. Arms sales equals deaths equals Capitalist profits.

The USA signs deals with Poland and the Czech Republic for placing anti missile defences on their land and the UK of course is happy to have missile listening posts at Fylingdales all to protect America from a possible attack. Attack from who is unknown in reality. Iran is suggested but they are many years away from developing any possibility of reaching the US and have no reason to do so UNLESS the US forces them into it. Russia also, will feel increasingly isolated and surrounded and will undoubtedly respond by increasing it’s nuclear capability. The Cold War all over again.

The Soviet Union was defeated eventually by the vast wealth of the US paying for ever increasing arms build up and so the need for the Soviets to respond in kind but this time around the US is all but bankrupt so the risks involved in this repeated strategy are greater.

While trying to force nations such as Iran away from even nuclear power the US props up Israel and has just done a deal with India supplying it with nuclear fuel and considers (for the time being at least) Pakistan an ally. All three countries are non signatories to the nuclear non proliferation treaty and breaches of UN resolutions abound. What hypocrites!

Update: Iran test missiles and is condemed by the US and Israel for being ‘provoctative’! The US threatens Iran and Israel carries out a rehersal for an attack on Iran and nothing is said. Double hipocracy! freethinkeruk is not an apologist for Iran but let’s have just a pinch of reality and natural justice please.